


seventeen times melanie king failed to assassinate her evil boss

by ceruleancats



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Comedy, Fair warning: gets a bit angsty towards the end, Gen, Humor, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Season/Series 03, Slaughter Avatar Melanie King, bc they weren't relevant to the archivist's journey, or at least her Becoming one, preemptive apology for melanie's mouth (we both curse like sailors), the extra assassination attempts weren't mentioned in canon, yes this a parody of the 5 times +1 trope
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:55:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24364651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceruleancats/pseuds/ceruleancats
Summary: ...and the one time she succeeded (with a little help from her friends).
Comments: 40
Kudos: 87





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this came to me like a divine message so I had to start writing it. melanie is a character i've been meaning to write for a while, and now i'm finally getting to write something from her perspective, so i'm having a lot of fun !
> 
> this isn't finished (yes, there will actually be 17 +1 assassination attempts), but I wanted to post what I had since i'll be getting really busy starting tomorrow. I promise it'll be finished eventually though!!!
> 
> anyway, enjoy, and let me know if ya like it so far!

1.

So maybe the poisoned coffee idea had been somewhat ill-advised. Maybe the problem had been the fact that she was being nice to Elias when he already knew full well she hated him. Maybe she just needed to take a more direct, less subtle approach that didn’t rely on her acting skills.

He’d said he “didn’t know everything,” right? Well, that just meant she had to be sneakier, or more unpredictable. 

No more assassination attempts? Hah, as if. Melanie King was no fucking quitter. 

2\. 

Daisy’s gun had been surprisingly easy to steal. Who knew Melanie had such skill at pick-pocketing? Pick-holstering? Whatever. She had the gun; that was the point. Now she just had to use it before Daisy noticed it was gone and strangled her to death for taking it. Or something. Daisy was scary, okay?

Melanie still wasn't 100% sure how guns worked, but according to 2ndAmendmentSlut on YouTube, they were so easy to use even a kindergartener could and should shoot one. She was now deeply worried about the state of gun control in the United States. 

She'd be fine. Just flip the safety, pull the trigger, and brace for the recoil. If 2ndAmendementSlut could do it, so could she! Yeah!

She hid the gun in the back of her waistband like in the movies and ascended the stairs towards Elias's office, walking as casually as possible. She was holding a file folder in her left hand for cover, so in case Elias could see her coming she had the excuse of consulting him on some statement or other for Jon.

She reached Elias's office and knocked politely on the door. 

"Come in, Melanie," he called, tone unreadably bland. Which, shit, meant he had been watching. Or he knew. She really needed to figure out what his powers actually were. But regardless, that would be a moot point after today. You know, ideally.

She opened the door, casually. Walked into the room, casually. Closed the door behind her, you guessed it, casually.

Elias was sitting at his desk. He looked up and raised an eyebrow at her. "Is that gun in your waistband or are you just happy to see me?"

Fuck. 

Also, fucking gross.

Melanie dropped the folder and whipped the gun out anyway. She pointed it at his head, arms held steady just like 2ndAmendmentSlut had taught her.

Elias looked unfairly unfazed. "I don't think you want to do this," he said pleasantly.

“Yes, I do,” said Melanie, gripping the gun tighter. She did. It was worth sacrificing everyone in the Institute to get rid of this creepy piece of shit once and for all, because he was absolutely lying about the fact that anyone would be sacrificed if he died. Probably.

Elias tilted his head at her, somehow conveying intense patronizing energy with such a small movement. “Are you truly willing to die just to kill me?”

“Yes!” Melanie said fiercely. “Stop trying to fucking distract me!”

“I’m certain I have no idea what you mean,” Elias said, blinking innocently. Smarmy motherfucker. She was doing this, because he was so clearly lying to save his greasy ass, and nothing that came out of his slimy little mouth was going to stop her. 

The trigger dug into her index finger, almost painfully.

Before she could pull it, the door burst open. Melanie flinched and fumbled the gun, which dropped to the floor with a clatter. 

“Don’t steal my shit!” Daisy snarled, snatching the gun from the ground before Melanie could react. 

“Hello, Daisy,” Elias said coolly, still sitting entirely unruffled despite having been milliseconds from death. 

“ _Fuck!_ ” screamed Melanie, with feeling. “Daisy, please just let me kill him. Just a little bit?”

“Get your own gun,” said Daisy shortly. She twirled hers unnecessarily and slipped it back into her holster, then left the room without further acknowledgement of Melanie or Elias. 

Daisy was really fucking cool but she was also really fucking up Melanie’s assassination attempts here. Melanie was conflicted. 

“This isn’t over,” she said to Elias darkly, before realizing she probably shouldn’t broadcast the fact that she was still planning to kill him. 

“Lovely chat, but I really must be getting back to my spreadsheets.” He gestured at the door like she was a servant he was dismissing. Prick. 

Melanie refused to give him the enjoyment of a reaction, so she turned around wordlessly and pointedly did _not_ stomp out of the office and similarly did not slam the door behind her. 

Fine, so the gun hadn’t worked. But Daisy had plenty of other weapons, because she was a crazy, murderous bitch, and like they said, it was really the third time that was the charm! 

She totally had this. 

3.

So perhaps the moral to this story was, when stealing a grenade from your local corrupt cop in order to kill your evil boss, try to make sure that he’s actually in his office when you pull the pin and roll it in there. 

Well, lesson learned, Melanie thought, as she hid in the men’s bathroom in order to escape Daisy’s rage at being stolen from again.

In fairness, how was she supposed to know Elias would be out of office? He always did budget spreadsheets on Tuesday mornings! Fucker must have seen her coming again. 

Okay, new plan. Strike when he was distracted by something else. Maybe that would interrupt his powers somehow. 

Yeah, fourth time was the...whatever. There was no point in counting anymore, because this time would work!

4\. 

Fucking Jonathan Sims! What a cowardly piece of shit! Who wouldn’t be willing to possibly doom the entire Institute in order to make sure Elias was forcibly shuffled off the mortal coil? A little baby man, that was who.

Melanie kicked her desk leg and immediately regretted it. This was also clearly Jon’s fault. Bootlicker. 

Martin looked up from his work on the other side of the room, concern bleeding from his expression. “Melanie, are you okay?”

Like he cared. “I’m doing _great_ ,” she said through gritted teeth, supporting this statement immensely by snapping one of the pencils on her desk in half violently.

“Right, good,” said Martin, somewhat faintly. Melanie ignored him. 

She couldn’t rely on any of these idiots in the Archives for help with her mission. She was going to get the hell out of this hellish place if it killed her. (It might, but she’d burn that bridge when she got to it.)

She could’ve gotten Elias if Jon hadn’t been there, so the logical extension of that was to try the same strategy again when he wasn’t. She’d left the knife in Elias’s office in the middle of her blind rage, which wasn’t great, but she also had a nice supply of kitchen knives that she could use without risking evisceration (which was what Daisy had threatened her with in the aftermath of the grenade incident. Speaking of, how the fuck had Elias repaired his office so fast?). 

At this point, Jon slunk back into the Archives proper, looking very obviously in the complete opposite direction of her desk. Good, he _should_ be feeling guilty. Melanie glared at the back of his head intently, but he (probably wisely) didn’t acknowledge her, retreating quickly to his lair and shutting the door firmly behind him.

Okay, it was settled. Bring a kitchen knife tomorrow and make sure everyone else was in the Archives before she made the trip up to Elias’s office. Easy.

5\. 

This was fucking humiliating. Melanie swiped at Elias again with the knife, and missed again by millimeters. He had the gall to actually _chuckle_ at her this time.

Curse Elias’s unnaturally strong arms and stupidly tall body and even more ridiculously high heeled boots. No matter how far Melanie strained and stretched and squirmed, she couldn’t cross the distance he’d created between them by planting his palm directly on her forehead and locking his elbow.

Melanie screamed wordlessly in frustration and threw the knife at his chest. It hit hilt-first and bounced harmlessly to the ground. Elias let her go and scooped up the knife in one fluid motion.

“I’m keeping this,” he told her, smirking.

“Fuck you,” Melanie said, breathing hard, and kicked him directly in the shin with her combat boots. 

Hah, so he did feel pain!

6.

The solution here was obviously a longer knife. Melanie palmed the knife in question, with its blade the length of her forearm. If she had been missing Elias by millimeters before, this one was long enough that it’d definitely be able to reach him. She was also wearing heeled boots for good measure, ones taller than Elias’s. Two could play at this game. 

She was too lost in the heady feeling of holding a knife with a blade the length of her forearm to notice Martin noticing it until he gasped loudly.

“Melanie, w-where are you—er, what’s that knife for?”

“Noneya,” Melanie said, hiding it hastily behind her back. 

“Melanie’s been trying to assassinate Elias,” Tim said traitorously from his desk. Had Jon been fucking snitching on her to the other assistants? “I assume she hasn’t had any luck or we’d all probably be dead.” Ungrateful asshole.

“I don’t see you doing a better job,” Melanie retorted. “Also, you believe his lies about why we shouldn’t kill him? Cringe.”

Tim just rolled his eyes at her and went back to his computer. Martin, on the other hand, reached a hand out toward her, palm up.

“Could you please give me the knife? I really don’t think this is a good idea.” He smiled at her, but judging by his eyes he was almost certainly screaming internally.

“And I really didn’t ask you.” Melanie spun on her heel and headed for the door to the Archives. 

“Oh god,” said Martin from behind her. “Tim, you’ve known about this for _how long_?”

Melanie didn’t stay to hear Tim’s answer, because she had a boss to kill.

7\. 

A goddamn motherfucking stab vest? As much as she hated him, Melanie had to admit that bitch was prepared.

Which was why she had gone on eBay a few nights ago and purchased a fully functional giant sword. Stab vests couldn’t protect against decapitation, now could they? Checkmate, creepy fear god avatars.

Having learned from the last time she brought a sharp object into the Archives, Melanie waited until no one was looking to sneak out of the room and up to Elias’s office, holding the sword in a completely unsuspicious duffel bag. 

“Hello, Melanie!” came Elias’s voice loudly and cheerfully through the door to his office when she was only halfway down the hall. Unfortunate, but she wasn’t relying on the element of surprise anyway. 

Melanie jogged the rest of the way to his door, removing the sword from the duffel bag and dropping the latter behind her carelessly. She opened the door with one hand, and held the sword (with some difficulty, as it was a big-ass sword) in the other. 

“Hello, bitch!” she said, matching Elias’s cheer. He was sitting sedately behind his desk, like always. The lack of faith he had in her assassination attempts was almost insulting at this point. 

She raised the sword, like she’d learned from SwordFucker69’s instructional YouTube videos (god bless the 21st century), and prepared to swing at Elias’s neck across the desk. This was the one, she could feel it.

She swung, and—CLANG! The sword reverberated painfully, having connected with, god fucking damn it, Elias’s sword, which he’d slipped out from under his desk to parry the blow. 

Elias smiled at her. “I’m a classically trained swordsman, so I’m afraid you won’t have much luck with this approach.”

Melanie shook her hands out one at a time and readjusted her grip on the sword anyway. Fuck classical training; SwordFucker69 had trained her _better_.

...Okay fine, maybe classical training had some merit, Melanie considered as she made the familiar walk of shame back down to the Archives, now down one giant eBay sword. But who the hell got sword training from anything other than the Internet these days? Like, how fucking old-slash-rich was this bitch that he’d been personally trained in swordsmanship?

So swords wouldn’t work. Maybe something more modern, then. A weapon that was already at the Institute, so she could strike twice in one day and throw him off. 

...After she got some ice. Sword fighting was surprisingly painful on the hands, even if you didn’t get stabbed and/or slashed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> take some more of this ridiculous story!! i love melanie king and you can quote me on that :)

8.

Melanie wasn’t expecting to stumble upon the perfect weapon in the tiny Archives kitchen, but lo and behold, she had practically impaled herself with it while ransacking the drawers for some kind of bag to hold ice in.

The icepick: perfectly innocuous, small enough to hide in her pocket, and just requiring a bit of hand-eye coordination to jam into Elias's evil eyeballs.

Melanie flipped the icepick experimentally, felt the solid weight of its handle landing back in her palm, and knew that this was definitely it. All those other times had just been warmups. The icepick was a perfect extension of her arm, able to jab and poke fluid and fast. (She practiced a few times on the bag of sugar Martin kept in the cabinet for tea. She was sure he wouldn’t mind the holes too much.)

Basira walked into the kitchen while Melanie was visualizing success, which was what all self help books told her to do. Or rather, that was the one phrase she vaguely remembered from the one page of the one self help book she’d idly read at a bookstore during a momentary lapse in judgement, inner strength, and dignity. She was really that desperate at this point. 

Basira stared at her weirdly. Probably because Melanie had been going on an intense face journey as part of the visualization, but still, uncalled for. 

“What?” Melanie asked, challengingly. 

Basira, who was the smartest person in the entire Archives and likely also the entire Institute, said “Nothing” without an ounce of emotion in her voice and immediately exited the room.

Absolutely ideal social interaction. She was Melanie’s new favorite.

Now, to actualize success. 

9.

Of all the stupid fucking things to prevent an assassination attempt! Fucking sunglasses! She had tried to stab through his sunglasses, obviously, but they must have been made out of some kind of reinforced material that made breaking the lenses impossible, because the alternative was that Melanie wasn’t strong enough to stab through them, and that was clearly false. 

He had laughed at her again this time. Tittered, even. Just thinking about it made her see red, made her hands itch for a baseball bat to bash his head in—hey, that was it! Blunt force trauma was a tried and true method of murder. And the best part was that it wasn’t just one stab and done. He would _suffer_ , death by a thousand, uh...bruises and bone fractures. 

Melanie was actually excited about this one. 

Baseball bat acquired, Melanie made her way up to Elias’s office. This time she honestly didn’t care if anyone saw her with the murder weapon. A couple people walking the halls stared at her a bit weirdly, but she just gave them one of her famous Fuck Off, You Nosy Bitch glares and they all immediately looked away. Hah, still got it!

Melanie opened Elias’s door with the baseball bat slung over her shoulder. 

Elias raised his eyebrows at her. “Oh, this certainly is a new one,” he said smoothly from where he was, per usual, sitting at his desk. 

“Yup,” Melanie said shortly, crossing the distance between the door and the desk and swinging the bat at his face.

Holy shit. Elias didn’t duck in time, and the tip of the bat scraped his cheekbone, hard enough for Melanie to feel the almost-collision. Before she could hit him again, he pushed his chair back violently, moving out of range. He actually looked almost...surprised, and a bit flustered. 

Melanie lunged forward to press the advantage, but Elias ducked under the desk and popped back up with an industrial saw, of all things, whirring deafeningly. 

“What the _fuck_ ,” Melanie said. Where had he even—never mind, it didn’t matter where it was from, because it didn’t change anything. She just had to have a more precise attack strategy. Right. She was attacking her boss with an aluminum baseball bat and he was defending himself with a fucking electric saw. Just another goddamn day at the Magnus Institute. God, she missed being a YouTuber. 

“It never hurts to be prepared,” Elias said, quickly erasing his surprise with a winning smile. But she _had_ surprised him. That meant something. 

She swung the bat again wordlessly, aiming around the saw, but Elias was too fast and the saw cut right through it with a terrible shriek of metal, spraying sparks everywhere. Fuck!

Melanie dropped the useless remaining half of the bat and backed away from the crazy grinning man with the industrial saw, feeling her way to the door with her hands so as not to turn her back to said man. 

“Okay, you win this time,” she said, consolingly. “No hard feelings.”

“Of course,” Elias said, inclining his head at her politely, seemingly not very concerned about the assassination attempt. He never really was, which was simultaneously confusing and infuriating. Whatever. This one was clearly a defeat, and however unfortunate that was, it was time to get the hell out before he went a step further than defending himself and turned the tables on her. 

Her hands found the doorframe behind her, and she backed carefully out, shutting the door on his shiny smile and screaming saw. She didn’t relax until she got back to her desk, but he didn’t seem to have followed her out of the office (well, he’d have to unplug the saw to do that anyway, so she was probably safe regardless).

Next time she just had to cut the power to his office. No electric saw without a power source, right? And maybe use something easier to get than a bat, because that shit would get expensive. Hm…

10\. 

Melanie was fucking elated when she passed Elias in the hall a few days later, because while they were exchanging their usual non-verbal greeting (Melanie flipping him the bird and glaring him into oblivion, and Elias smirking politely back), she noticed he was sporting a faint but still visible bruise on his cheekbone. 

Hah! Fucking proof that no matter how much of a terrible eldritch monster or whatever bullshit he was, he could still be injured! He wasn’t untouchable, just really cocky and generally uncannily well-prepared! Yeah!

Melanie fist-pumped all the way to her desk. 

“So, what’s got you so—” Martin began to say from where he was standing in front of Tim’s desk, before Tim forcibly smothered his mouth with both hands. 

“Don’t even ask,” Tim hissed at Martin, but it was too late, because Melanie was extremely excited to share this news with everyone, no matter how much they did not want to hear it.

“Elias has a bruise!” she practically sang. 

“Right,” said Martin, obviously not understanding. “That’s...good?”

“I can kill him! He’s not invulnerable!”

“Ohhhhh,” said Martin, trying to catch Tim’s gaze. “Yes, I forgot about your...assassination plots. Going well, are they?”

Well, obviously not as well as they could be, given that Elias was still, you know, alive, but this was undeniably progress. She told Martin as much, and he nodded politely. 

“Well, er, good luck?” he said, looking at Tim for moral support maybe, and failing to get any because Tim had put earbuds in and was ignoring both of them. Rude. But Tim had been Going Through It for a while, so Melanie understood. Sometimes, people were rude and antisocial to cope, sometimes they made unreasonable amounts of tea, and sometimes they undertook a long series of assassination attempts on their boss. To each their own. 

“Thanks,” Melanie said, because at least Martin was being somewhat supportive, even if he (like the rest of the Archives) refused to actively help her in her quest on the grounds that “murder is illegal” and “I don’t want Elias to revenge kill me in my sleep.” The Archives was kind of filled with cowards, honestly. 

“‘Course,” Martin said, then backed away to his desk in a clear conversation escape attempt. Fair enough. Melanie should be getting to work anyway. On the murder plots, of course, not Archives work. Who the fuck actually did work around here anyway? Enforcing that was Jon’s problem, though, not Melanie’s, and she had no intention of doing anything that benefited Elias in any way, shape, or form.

So, she was taking this random metal pipe she’d found in Jon’s office (which she’d been in totally legitimately while he was out playing tourist in the States or whatever the hell he was doing these days instead of showing up to work), and going to engage in some light murder! The pipe was thick enough that she didn’t think his stupid saw would be able to cut through it, electricity or no electricity. She’d fucked with his outlets after hours (and would’ve sabotaged his industrial saw too, if she’d been able to find it), but there was no guarantee that he hadn’t fixed them, or hell, gotten an extension cord to get power from down the hall or something, now that she was thinking about it. 

But blunt force trauma was still a good plan! That bruise meant something! This was going to work!

11.

Okay, what the hell were the chances of Elias also having a goddamn metal pipe in his office? He must have seen her stealing—sorry, _borrowing_ the pipe from Jon with his creepy powers and decided to be a real funnyman by getting one of his own. 

Although that didn’t really explain the whole part where he’d disarmed her during their pipe fight and dramatically said something like, “You were doomed from the start, Melanie, when you attempted to use such sloppy technique against the pipe master.” Melanie didn’t want to think about the phrase “pipe master” too hard, but this whole affair was unfortunately making her lose hope in the feasibility of blunt force trauma as a murder method. 

Maybe the problem was that she wasn’t being creative enough. Or the weapons weren’t deadly enough. She needed something with some real force. Actually, she had the perfect thing to try next: while she’d been....exploring Jon’s office and finding the pipe, she’d also discovered something much more interesting—an axe. Why Jon, the person with the weakest noodle arms in the Institute (probably), would have an axe hidden in his office, she didn’t know. Whether or not he could actually lift it, she also didn’t know. But what Melanie _did_ know was that she was buff as fuck and completely qualified for axe murder. 

Fuck Elias and his classical swordsmanship; she had a (very sharp, as proven by her bleeding fingers) axe.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, it's been 6 months since I updated this fic. No, I have no excuse. Please enjoy :)

12\. 

"Melanie, why are you carrying a—" began Martin, before cutting himself off with a sigh. "Never mind, I don't want to know. Just please don't hurt yourself."

"Wasn't planning on it, but thanks," Melanie snapped, hefting the axe higher over her shoulder as she made her way out of the Archives. If Martin thought she was so unqualified to use an axe, he could...well, he could go fuck himself! All you had to do was swing it, right? Of course she was fucking qualified.

She stomped her way up to Elias's office, ignoring the wary and often outright terrified looks she was getting from other Institute employees unfortunate enough to be in the stairwell at the same time as her. These people needed to mind their own damn business! Sometimes, a girl just needed to axe murder her boss, and that was okay!

Once she reached Elias's office, she tried the door handle. Huh, locked. That didn't usually happen. Melanie shrugged and brought the axe above her head.

The axe slammed into the door with all the force Melanie could muster with her average height body (she was _not_ fucking short, okay) and jacked arms. The wood shattered, pieces spraying off every which way, and a thin vertical hole appeared in the door. Melanie realized she should probably check if Elias was actually in there before she went through the trouble of breaking the whole door down, so she peeked through the hole.

And there the bastard was, sitting sedately at his desk like she hadn't just attacked his door with an axe. He caught her eye through the hole and raised a single unimpressed eyebrow. "Please don't say 'Here's Melanie.'"

"Fuck you!" Melanie snapped, and hit the door several more times until the wood was hanging loose enough that she could kick it out of the way to step through the giant hole she'd made. Which, sidenote, was dope as hell. Axes were actually amazing.

Elias, piece of shit that he was, still hadn't moved from his desk, and was watching her progress across the room towards him with a mild disinterest that made Melanie’s blood boil. 

She was angry enough that she didn't even bother trying to come up with a pithy one-liner, just adjusted her grip on the axe and brought it down as hard as she could in the direction of his head. 

But before it could cleave his skull in half, there was a brown blur, and Melanie's arms wrenched painfully as the axe sank instead into a goddamn wooden shield that Elias had whipped out of nowhere and was now using to protect his head. What the fuck? What the fuck. 

Melanie snarled and tried to pull the axe out, but Elias yanked the shield to the side and the axe slipped out of her grip, the blade still buried in the wood.

"Nice try," Elias said, in possibly the most condescending tone she'd ever heard. Or maybe that was just his voice. Same fucking diff.

Melanie let out a wordless shriek of frustration directly into his face.

Elias blinked. "Well, that was rude."

Melanie punched him in the face. Well, tried to. He ducked the punch like he'd seen it coming, which, since he was a piece of shit bottom-feeding greasy-haired limp-dicked rat-looking _evil psychic_ , he probably had. If he could read her mind, she hoped he'd heard that, but he didn't give any indication of it, just smiled at her politely and said, "I think this meeting is over, don't you?"

Melanie growled, but he was right. She clearly wasn't going to get the drop on him this time. Best to retreat and try again.

She left the office back through the gaping hole in the door, giving him a one-finger salute over her shoulder, because she was nothing if not a petty bitch.

13\. 

Melanie spent the rest of the work day after the axe debacle sitting at her desk and trying to come up with a pattern for why she had failed so many assassination attempts. It definitely wasn't _her_ , and it even more definitely wasn't that Elias was unbeatable, or whatever the asshole wanted to think,, so it had to be some kind of external factor. 

Think, Melanie, think! It had to be something. 

Wait a minute, maybe it was her weapons! Yeah! So far, everything she'd tried to kill him with had been wholly ordinary. (In the "not supernatural" sense, that was. She wasn't really claiming that swords and grenades were normal things to have lying around the office.) What Melanie needed was some kind of paranormal, magical, spooky, or otherwise not-normal weapon. Of course! Why hadn't she thought of this before! Elias wasn't fucking human; no wonder she was having trouble killing him with _human_ weapons. 

Now, to sneak into Artifact Storage! There had to be dozens of potential weapons in there.

Melanie glanced around the office. She'd been so deep in thought she must have missed Martin, Tim, and Basira clocking out for the day. Well, the less people around questioning where she was going, the better.

Artifact Storage was spooky as hell, especially at night, but Melanie had faith in her fucking badass fighting skills, and consoled herself with the thought that she could definitely kick the shit out of any creepy monster thing that happened to pop up out of the shadows. Or wherever else monsters liked to hang out in dark buildings filled with extremely cursed objects. 

From what Melanie could see in the beam of her phone's flashlight, the "artifacts" mostly looked like a bunch of trash. Fucking typical. But after a few minutes of searching, she came across a long wooden spear topped with a wickedly sharp metal point. Jackpot.

There were signs balanced in front of the spear, saying things like "HAUNTED SPEAR, DO NOT TOUCH," and "I'M SERIOUS, DO NOT PLAY WITH THIS, NATHAN, WE ALREADY LOST ONE INTERN AND WE DON'T HAVE THE BUDGET TO COVER UP ANOTHER MYSTERIOUS DEATH," and "GODDAMMIT JUST LISTEN TO THE OTHER SIGNS I'M TRYING TO HELP YOU HERE," but Melanie ignored them and picked up the spear.

Nothing obviously supernatural or terrible happened when she touched it, so the signs were probably just lying so someone didn't fuck around and break the spear. Hah! This was going to go great.

The next morning, Melanie was in bright and early, because she had been too excited about her new assassination attempt to sleep in. Surprisingly enough, Tim was there too. Well, more like annoyingly enough, because when he saw her retrieve the haunted spear from where she'd stashed it under her desk last night, he started trying to talk to her.

"What're you doing with that spear? Is that from Artifact Storage? Because, free advice: I wouldn't fuck with anything that came from there." 

Melanie glared at him. Another person thinking they knew how to do her job better than she did. "Fuck you. I need it. And nothing even happened when I touched it, so it's fine."

Tim stared at her incredulously. "It's literally dripping blood right now."

"Don't worry about it."

Tim rolled his eyes. "Fine, just trying to help. I don't know why I even bother. Go get yourself killed, see if I care."

"Fine, I will," Melanie said icily, and turned away from him and his dumb unwarranted advice. What did he know anyway? All he cared about was fucking—clowns, or whatever. Blood dripping from a spear was fine and normal.

Melanie spun the spear around experimentally a few times as she headed to Elias's office. It handled great, felt like a natural extension of her arm. 

Fortunately, it was early enough that there weren't any people in the stairwell to judge her for the spear. She almost worried that it was too early for Elias to even be there (he seemed the type to be all about his "beauty rest" or whatever dumb shit rich people called sleep these days), but her fears were unfounded; the door was unlocked and Elias wished her a good morning without even turning around from where he was perusing his bookshelf.

"Good morning to you too, dickhead," Melanie said cordially, lining up her spear for a good shot. 

Elias turned around before she had the chance to throw it. "Oh, very nice spear you have there," he said mildly. "Shame it's so...messy though." His gaze dropped to the ground, where a small puddle of red was rapidly staining his stupid fancy carpet.

"Shut up," Melanie snapped, brandishing the spear at him.

Elias, wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, shut up. Melanie stabbed forward blindingly fast and— 

The spear buried itself deep into the spine of one of the books.

"Melanie, that was a first edition!" Elias said, sounding somewhat aggrieved from where he had dodged a few feet to the right. "Irreplaceable!"

Melanie ignored him and focused on getting the point of the spear unstuck from the book. Unfortunately her hands were covered in blood from the spear, which made it hard to get any traction. Before she could pull the spear out, it was snatched out of her hands.

Melanie watched, despairing, as Elias took the spear, book still stuck on the point, and snapped it over one knee. (This would have been really hot if it were literally anyone other than Elias, which made it sad on multiple levels.) Immediately, two twin fountains of blood burst from the broken ends, thoroughly soaking Elias's suit.

He dropped both halves of the spear and stared down at the giant stain on his suit with a considerable amount of disgust. 

"I think we can call this a lose-lose," Melanie said, resisting the urge to break down laughing at his offended expression. Yeah, she was fucking pissed that _another_ murder attempt had gone wrong, but also this was fucking hilarious. 

"You owe me a new Armani. This is coming out of your paycheck," Elias said calmly, wiping blood off his suit jacket ineffectually.

"Joke's on you; I don't do any work anyway!" Melanie said with faux cheer, before cutting her losses and hightailing it back down to the Archives.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gave attempt #14 its own chapter because it got long! Hope you enjoy :)  
> (edit: I think there's something weird going on w ao3 so sorry if you got two emails!!)

14.

Melanie considered making another quick nighttime visit to Artifact Storage for some other haunted weapon, but that would be what Elias was expecting, right? She needed something more out of the box. Right? Right! Right.

These days if she sat still with her own thoughts for too long it felt like her brain was melting or burning up or something, but she couldn't worry about anything like that when she had an evil, lying sack of shit to dispose of! 

Anyway. She poked around Jon's office again, just to check (since he'd had a pipe plus an axe in there, it just seemed worth another peek). There wasn't much interesting this time; his desk was covered in a mess of statements and sticky notes scrawled in his unreadable handwriting. The desk drawers were similarly stuffed with random statements and folders, and the only remotely intriguing thing Melanie found was a glass jar filled with what appeared to be ashes buried at the bottom of one of them. Huh. Weird, but not exactly murder weapon material.

About when Melanie was bored of shuffling through dumbass statements and ready to admit defeat in this particular mission, she noticed something move out of the corner of her eye. She whipped around, ready to come up with a bullshit excuse for why she was ransacking Jon's office, but it was just a spider crawling calmly across the wall. Actually, not just “a spider,” because on closer inspection, it appeared to be a black widow. Not that Melanie was a spider expert or anything (that would be Martin, spider-loving freak), but it had the right shape and everything.

She considered squashing it, or just leaving it as a nasty surprise for Jon, since she was still fucking pissed at him too for getting her all caught up in this shit to begin with, but…well, she had been looking for an unconventional kind of weapon that Elias wouldn't suspect. And anyway, if it was hanging out in the Archives, it was probably some kind of supernaturally enhanced evil spider, which was definitely a plus.

Now she just had to catch it without it killing her before she had the chance to sic it on Evil Boss Numero Uno. She glanced around the office for something to put it in before remembering the jar of ashes. Perfect!

Melanie dug out the jar, emptied the ashes into Jon's trash can (hopefully it wasn't like, his grandma's ashes or something, though honestly she didn't feel too bad about it), and carefully approached the spider. It had stopped moving at this point and was just hanging out on the wall.

"Don't bite me, please," she told the spider. She couldn't tell if it understood her or not, but when she carefully scraped the rim of the jar underneath it, it fell into the bottom without biting her or transforming into a super mega spider or whatever the fuck supernatural spiders could do. She screwed the lid back on quickly just in case.

After sneaking back out into the Archives proper with the jar, she unfortunately ran directly into Martin.

And because it was Martin, upon noticing what she was carrying and what was inside of it, he immediately cooed and said, "You're taking the little guy outside instead of killing it? That's really nice of you, Melanie!"

Melanie scoffed in his face. "No, _idiot_ , I'm going to throw it at Elias so it bites and kills him."

Martin stared at her for a second and then laughed nervously. "Haha, good one."

Melanie glared at him.

"...Right, you're not joking," Martin said, looking like he'd rather be getting his fingernails pulled off one by one than standing here talking to her. Well, the feeling was mutual.

"Good talk," Melanie snapped, pushing past him towards the door out of the Archives. 

"I don't think these assassination plots are very good for your mental health!" Martin called after her. "Have you possibly considered therapy?"

Melanie ignored that cowardly attempt at stopping her and slammed the door shut behind her. This was her fucking mission, and no one in the Archives understood. She _had_ to kill Elias. She just had to. That was all. He was evil, he was trapping them, and that meant he needed to die, for everyone's benefit, even if they didn't see it that way.

Melanie shook her head to clear it. She didn't have to fucking justify this to herself. She just had to do it.

Elias was sitting behind his desk, as usual, relaxed as could be, as usual, looking like a massive douche, as usual. 

"Melanie," he said calmly upon her kicking the door open for no other reason than she felt like ruining something of his. If this attempt didn't work, at least she had that.

"Hi," she spit, opening the jar and throwing it directly at his chest. 

This time, Melanie had been too fast for him to dodge, and the open end of the jar smacked against Elias hard enough to jolt the spider out onto the collar of his stupid-ass fancy suit. 

"Fuck yeah, get him!" she crowed, urging the spider to crawl onto his neck and bite with all her considerable willpower. It had to be mad about being thrown, so it must be wanting to bite someone right about now, and Elias was _right there_.

But the spider didn't bite, or crawl onto his neck. All it did was chill on his fucking collar.

"What the _fuck_?" Melanie snarled. "Just bite him already!"

The spider did nothing. Call her crazy, but Melanie honestly thought it seemed to be having the time of its life, sitting there contentedly on her piece of shit boss's dress shirt. Fucking useless turncoat spider.

After a few more seconds of Melanie heatedly cursing out Elias and the spider (in her mind, because she didn't want to give Elias the satisfaction of hearing it), he picked the spider up delicately and held it suspended between his pointer finger and thumb.

"I don't blame you for being unaware, Melanie, but the spiders and I have an arrangement," he said, inspecting it dispassionately.

And then, without warning, he crushed the spider between his fingers, spilling its guts across his skin and onto the floor, which was still faintly bloodstained from the haunted spear incident.

"Ew!" Melanie cried, actually leaping backwards in surprise, embarrassingly enough.

Elias just smiled at her like a shark with uncomfortably good dental hygiene and produced a handkerchief from his suit pocket to wipe off his hand.

"You're fucking gross," Melanie said as she backed towards the door.

"This was honestly disappointing. Please try harder next time," Elias said, like a patronizing asshole. Because he was a patronizing asshole. Who fucking insulted the person trying to murder them for not trying hard enough? Melanie felt almost incandescent with righteous rage, but there wasn’t much more she could do here.

She kicked the door again on the way out, though, because fuck him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another attempt! enjoy and lmk if ya liked it :)

15.

Okay. As much as she hated to admit it, the direct approach didn't seem to be working. And every time Melanie went into Elias's office and the slimy piece of garbage somehow slipped, squirmed, or otherwise greasily avoided her perfectly viable attempt at cold blooded murder, she just got angrier. And as good as getting mad felt, there was the slight problem that the madder Melanie got, the less rational her thoughts became. (Yeah, she was fucking self aware! Martin and Basira and Tim and Jon could suck it and get the fuck off their high horses!) Thinking about anything other than assassination attempts now felt a bit like slogging through a waist-high swamp filled with mines, if the swamp was filled with blood instead of water and also the sky was filled with blood and also the mines were filled with blood—well, you got the picture. It was possible she had blood on the mind.

But it was fine! As soon as she fucking ripped Elias's head off, everything would go back to normal, and she wouldn't be smelling the coppery tang of blood and hearing what she was beginning to think was other peoples' heartbeats every time she got a little too focused. 

Yeah, everything was fine.

Melanie kept up that mantra as she stalked down the hallway to Elias's office for the hundred billionth time. But this time was different! This time she was hardly involved in the actual attempt, so with any luck Elias would be caught by surprise. As long as that ethically flexible janitor she'd bribed last night had done what he had promised to do...but Melanie was pretty sure he would, since she'd described in gory detail what would happen to him if he didn't. Yeah, he'd definitely held up his end of the bargain if he knew what was good for him.

Melanie carefully placed her hand on the fire alarm located conveniently on the wall a few meters from Elias’s office and pulled down. 

The alarm blared through the hallway and the sprinklers in the ceiling burst to life, showering Melanie's hair and shoulders with drops of water. She paid them no mind, though, and made her way over to the closed door of Elias’s office. 

The distinct sizzling sound coming from inside made her smile, probably slightly more ferally than was warranted, but hey, this was _exciting_! The janitor had kept his promise! It was a little sad that she wouldn't get to tear him apart for refusing to honor their agreement, which was a thought to unpack at a later date, but Elias was absolutely the fucking priority here.

Melanie eased the door open slowly, making sure to avoid any splashes from the sprinkler inside. She couldn't wait to see that bastard convulsing on the floor, his flesh bubbling and searing off beneath the streams of acid the janitor had planted in the fire suppression system for the office.

But Elias was sitting at his desk. With an umbrella. A _fucking_ umbrella. A fucking _magical_ umbrella, apparently, because the acid was sliding off of it with zero damage to the thing and falling harmlessly to the floor where the goddamn fancy carpet was dissolving merrily. 

Elias looked up and caught Melanie's gaze, smiling pleasantly. She noticed absently that he was still typing away industriously at his computer with the hand that wasn't holding the fucking umbrella. 

"Hello, Melanie," Elias said mildly. "Unfortunately the cost of this damage will have to be deducted from your salary. Although, I must say, I am very impressed by your ingenuity."

"Fuck you, asshole!" Melanie spat.

"That's not very polite," Elias said.

"Hssssshhhhhhshshhhhhhhh," the acid eating up the carpet hissed.

Melanie wanted nothing more than to beat the shit of out of that rat bastard, but she wasn't far gone enough to run into an office raining acid without a magic umbrella. It would have to wait.

She punched a hole in the wall on her way back down to the Archives and watched in fascination as the skin on her knuckles knit itself slowly back together.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tbh was Not expecting this fic to go in the somewhat angsty direction that it did, but as i am merely the conduit, fair warning: there's still humor, but Melanie's not exactly having a fun time these days!

16.

"What, er, what've you got there, Melanie?" Martin asked somewhat timidly, staring at what was obviously a rabid raccoon where it was ensconced in Melanie's arms.

"A smoothie," Melanie snarled at him sarcastically, struggling a bit to keep it from biting her face or escaping before she could get to Elias’s office. 

From the other side of the Archives, Basira said, "This seems...unwise."

This was perfectly fucking wise, actually. And it'd basically been a blessing from above, finding this little guy in the storm drain on her way to work. Someone had been smiling down on her this morning. 

"'Unwise?'" Tim parroted, gaping at Melanie and the raccoon. "You mean fucking unhinged, right? Melanie, you're a fucking psycho, you know that?" 

Melanie sneered at him wordlessly. She'd have punched him in the face for that kind of disrespect normally, but her hands were a little full at the moment. 

Of course, fucking Jon, who was finally back from fucking around on vacation in the States or whatever the hell he'd been up to, chose this moment to step in and make a weakass attempt at exercising his managerial powers. "Melanie, seriously, maybe this has gone far enough, don't you think?" he said, eyeing the raccoon with a fair amount of trepidation. "Just please put the raccoon down. Or, well, maybe don't put it down, actually, just hang onto it a moment while I call animal control?"

" _Fuck_ you!" Melanie snapped, adjusting her grip on the raccoon as it tried to sink its teeth into her neck. Martin and Jon cringed in unison, the scaredy bitches. "You ungrateful bastards! I'm doing this for _all of us_! You're going to fucking thank me!"

"Okay, Melanie, I'm sure we will," Jon said gently, like _Melanie_ was the rabid animal he was trying to calm down. "But I think maybe we should all take a deep breath and—"

Melanie had heard fucking enough at this point, and shoved Jon out of her way with her shoulder as she stomped towards the door.

"Melanie!" Martin called from behind her.

She ignored him and used one foot to kick open the door, letting it slam closed behind her.

Good fucking riddance! Why did those assholes never understand, no matter how many times she explained that she was _doing this_ for _all of them_? God fucking damn it! Melanie wanted to slam her fist into the wall again, but obviously her hands were full of raccoon and as buff as she was, it was probably inadvisable to try to wrangle a rabid animal with just one arm. 

She reached Elias's office without incident (if you didn't count the several holes in her shirt, which Melanie didn't because it was just some fucking shirt, and also the blood that had started staining it, which was really no big deal in the grand scheme of getting rid of the Rat Bastard). It was a good thing Melanie had mad fucking skills and was able to kick doors open with ease now, because it made it possible to enter Elias's office without much difficulty.

Elias looked up from his computer when the door banged open and raised his eyebrows. "Hello, Melanie. You are certainly getting more creative with these."

"Don't you ever get sick of hearing the sound of your own voice?" Melanie hissed, and threw the raccoon at his face.

It snarled and flailed and spit foam but flew straight and true.

And Elias moved faster than Melanie's eye could track and there was an earsplitting _bang_ and the raccoon whimpered and flopped bonelessly onto Elias's desk, leaking bright red coppery-smelling blood that hit Melanie's nostrils like a tidal wave.

"That was uncalled for. Look what you made me do to my desk!" Elias admonished, gesturing at the expanding crimson puddle with the still-smoking gun.

Melanie let out a wordless scream and wanted more than she'd ever wanted anything in her life to charge Elias and choke the shit out of him and watch the fucking life drain from his eyes, but she couldn't, she fucking _couldn't_ , because he had a gun and if she died he would never get killed because none of the pathetic Archives staff had the stones to do what Melanie was doing so she _had_ to get out of here and survive to reach another day—and Elias was staring at her and fiddling with the trigger of the gun and all Melanie could smell was the blood, thick and heady and filling her nose and mouth like she was the one bleeding, and she turned and fled from Elias's office like a fucking coward.

She hid in her usual stall in the main floor men's bathroom. She was shivering with adrenaline and there was something dripping on the tile and her face felt weirdly wet. When she swiped a hand across her cheeks and nose and looked down, her fingers were smeared with red. 

Oh. So she _had_ been the one bleeding. That probably wasn't a good sign, she thought absently, but it didn't really feel that urgent.

She kind of wanted to cry, but a few minutes or maybe hours later when the janitor gently kicked her out for hanging out in the men's bathroom again, her eyes were still painfully dry.


End file.
